The Rise and Recession of the Rational Society, Individualism = Egoism, End of Millennium (start of another paradigm)
Engineers STOP! 'social engineering' = rationalism = calculus = horror-cartoon of multidimensional sense experience as optimized in BILLIONS of years .
Manuel Castells, The Information Age (the language-world of 'rational words = cyberculture' ): Economy,
Society and Culture. Blackwell Publishers: Malden (Mass) and Oxford.
In short: In the tradition of Critical Theory Castells analizes the situation on earth. Without aiming at giving a 'solution', just making sense of our world.
Rational communication like a virus rapidly adapts even familiar processes, institutions, movements and
thoroughly proven behavior.
The author Castells describes a world totally dominated by 'rationality'. Inherently
Manuel Castells argues that rationalism ('natural law' and 'law and order') got that dominant and rigid,
that the only way out is a paradigm shift.
Some common sense:
Evolution is a melting pot of sense rituals, but since Enlightenment in the human 'Western World suddenly prefers logical manupilating (in 'rational' logic),
and this is called 'understanding'. That lead to industrialism, capitalism, 2 world wars, cold war, war on terrorism, exploitation of earth, but use of 'rational' logic ('understanding') is in this 'Western World' arrogantly seen as HUGE success.
The Scientific Philosophy of someone like Karl Popper
considers TRUE or FALSE (virtual 'truth') in a 'rational' world obeying the 'rationality' of 'science'.
If you realize that the rationalism of Enlightenment is only 1 out of limitless reshuffling LOGICS,
then you also realize that this is TOTAL absolutism, asking for terrorism.
A sketch of the 3 volumes:
Volume I, The Rise of the Network Society , covers not only the (rational) 'words' explosion, the spiderweb of 'multinationals', labor, but also the culture of the electronic media, and (the rational enlightenment view) on space and time
Volume II
, The
Power of Identity, does not begin with almost considering IDEAS as natural law in the usual pair 'politics' (IDEA in practice) and ideology (IDEA-world),
but with the couple identity and meaning. Realize that 'identity' is an IDEA (a definition).
An 'idea' gives meaning to itself by using 'words' from its own IDEA-world.
Part II ends with the transformation of
the state and the crisis of the realization of the IDEA 'democracy'.
Volume III, End of Millenium, turns out to be dealing with such diverse topics as the collapse of the Soviet Union, Africa and the 'wasting' of children, the Pacific basin and the European Union, social exclusion, crime getting computerised and global.
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Since about 1980 liberal theorists or ideologues began telling us about our world being transformed by networking and/or globalisation. It took ten years before this subject became fashionable among prominent radical sociologists. They talk of a society that is 'complex', 'highly modern', 'radical modern', 'turns around risk', post-traditional', and about 'the mode of information', the need for a 'historical/geographical materialism' or for 'a new common sense'. Now in 1998 the new Alvin Toffler with the name Manuel Castells again travels the same road. Toffler vanished in thin air, and allthough Castell has more 'medals' he might follow the same way. In the case of Castells comparisons with Marx major work 'das Kapital' are at least mildly exaggerated. For instance Marx didn't write 3 volumes, for a subject that easily fits in 1. That makes more than 1400 pages that can be summarised in 2! But maybe the explanation is that Marx wasn't a capitalist. Yet Castells wrote a noteworthy book. Be aware though that Castells is a typical fan of 'social democracy', repeatedly showing his belief in the 'rational' fantasy a 'social world'. |
Castells argues that (rational concept) capitalism, through networking, has reached the top its abilities, even to the point at which this web of reason starts unasked for to rule over capitalists.
Castells distinguishes between three types of identity: those of legitimation, of resistance and of project. The first gives rise to a civil society dominated by (rational) information. The second one is a counter movement: an informational guerilla (but also making more use of the logic 'common sense', the mother of rationalism). The third produces 'social subjects', collective social actors:
Informational guerrilla (fighting the rational 'spiders)
It seems that an informational guerrilla is not simply a guerrilla movement combining information technology and sensitivity, it is also a guerrilla within the media of a rational global and networked capitalism ( GNC). Osama bin Laden is in my view at present a good example. In a desperate attempt to restore ethical behavior he fights an informational guerilla against FBI, CIA and most western media. To make that fight succeed he is forced to use for Western senses attention attracting violence. Arafat lost such a guerilla, but Bin Laden has already much more support.
Global environmental movement(s) for Castells are replacing in the information age the labour movements of for the industrial period. Environmentalism, for Castells, provides the necessary grip on social transformation under contemporary (rational) conditions:
Labour stops being a Force
Castells' analysis of the impact of a GNC on labour is following. He argues that there is no such thing as a global labour force, in the sense that there is global capital. There is however an increasing interdependence between local and localised labour forces as a result of:
1) global employment in rational multinationals
2) the impacts of rational international trade on employment and conditions both North and South,
3) the local effects of rational global competition and rational flexible management. Work and labour are not going to disappear under the new mode, but labour's relationship with capital is being transformed. Bodily labor has become fragmented in organisation, and has become helpless against management (see body-mind problem). Under a rational networked and continually altering capitalism, it is difficult to even identify the owners, producers, managers and labourers:
So labour stays but its movement (though itself also rational) has lost its usefulness in creating change in a dominantly rational world. And for this reason the labour movement stops having a reason of existence.
Labour not only lost the
exclusive license on emancipation, but it totally disappears as a force for
emancipation. Ongoing reinvention seems the requirement of any movement for
emancipation.
Castells' main message: (rational) communication is increasingly in command. This is most clearly revealed in his explanation of the relation between rational networking and the rational media.
Communication is seen as a flow of rational information from a group of individuals to a private person (previously being a member of any organisation was the best way of getting rationally informed).
Media . Presently rational communication integrates written, oral and audio-visual language. It is compared by Castells to the invention of the alphabet in Greece, close to 3 ages ago!
Castells pictures the growing power of the media but rejects notions of a passive and only consuming audience. This might be familiar to radical media specialists but is nonetheless welcome in a work of general social theory. Castells then deals with the recent development of the increasingly scattering electronic media versus the explosive use of Internet, and its implications for the future. Cultures are getting more and more 'virtual'.
Castells argues that the brand-new and increasingly integrated rational communication system is both complex and dominating all others, and destroys all other modes of cultural expression:
Since the house-logic of catholicism rationalism
SUPPOSES conflict everywhere ('good spirits' fighting 'evil spirits'), it sees social conflict worldwide, and became champion in dull compromising. But the price paid for entry is that of adapting to the logic rationalism. |
A fourth world or 'under'-world
The Fourth World is a label that opposes the wisful fantasy notions 1st World and 2nd World. Castells points at everything ignored: 1. a criminal world (a HUGE drug 'economy'); 2. an underdeveloped world 'outside' (Africa + South America); 3. an underdeveloped world 'inside' (subburbs as ghettos). 4. nomads all over earth
Time, space and information capitalism
Castells does remind us, that classical social theory (like that of Marx) saw time as active and space as passive, while time conquered space and created 'timelines'. Castells still distinguishes 'time' but presents time and space as interacting, and clearly sees his space of flows as dictating the relationship 'timespace'.
Space : Castells apologises for going into abstract theory here, but he assists as much as possible. Space, he says, is the material base for social practices that share the same time. Traditionally, this kind of space was thought to be continuous, and facilitating face-to-face (more than only rational communication. But our society is increasingly getting constructed around rational flows - reacting in a unexpected way on money-streams and information-exchange between organisations, and in the end reacting to sounds and symbols.
Time : Not really convincing but to match his notion of discontinuity in the space, Castells invents timeless time. He means quasi-instantaneous decision-making, possibly leading to increasing instability. Castells in time sees this model influencing everybody.
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For the social democrat Castells, the new millennium starts with more than only a change within rational capitalism. [W]e have entered a purely cultural pattern of social organisation. This is why rational information became the key ingredient of our social organisation and why flows of messages and images between networks constitute the basic thread of our rational social structure... He wants culture to be
in command as well, resulting in a social world. That part of his trilogy is
not really convincing.
Inspired by this work I wrote an article seeing myths as knowledge viruses.
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| Comment Zarah2nd: Compromise being missed by Manuel Castells as an awfully corruptive force is understandable.
But in my view ignoring the rationally replacing of the value 'respect' by 'money' is a missed chance of this claimed social democrat. |
| It was extreme rational thinking that caused WWI and WWII. In WWII the evil genius Adolf Hitler made the difference between the 'German side' and the allied forces.
But that was in many cases the ONLY difference. In a Buddhist country like Japan the value 'respect' is very important, it was rational thinking that made Japanese leaders 'forget' so.
The Japanese culture in WWII was still highly buddhist, as shown by the honorable ultimate defense 'kamikaze'. In my opinion 'kamikaze' deserves much more
respect than throwing atom bombs. It takes the 'guts' found in extreme fighting. Without realizing Castells questions the dominance of 'the world of Western fantasies' of The Scientific Philosophy of Karl Popper |
| Back to Castells. Is a billionaire worth more respect than a beggar? Poor people have less power, but is communication only about power? It was Haile Selassie who mid 20th century said something like: nothing wrong with respectful leadership. Democracy European style is an illusion. |
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Paradigm Shift Zarah2nd Return to Common Sense |
